Members of Kaiser Permanente said they certainly felt the impact of last week's sympathy strikes, described by one labor union as the largest such job action in the United States in 127 years.
Cancer survivor Bil Paul, a resident of the Solano County community of Dixon , said he received a call last Thursday canceling a medical procedure aimed at evaluating whether any new tumors had developed in his bladder.
Jessica Bartholow, a resident of the Bay Area community of San Leandro, said she got an automated message saying she would be on hold several hours due to a work stoppage when she called Kaiser to cancel her mammogram. She didn't want to go to her Thursday appointment, she said, because she would have had to cross a picket line.
In a statement sent to The Sacramento Bee on Wednesday, Kaiser executives apologized for "any inconvenience (members) may have experienced during last week's strikes.
"As always, the health and safety of our members is our priority. We worked hard to reduce the disruption the strikes were intended to cause, ensuring we continued to provide urgent and emergency care, and critical medical appointments."
Over the course of Thursday and Friday, unions representing more than 60,000 workers hit the picket line in support of Kaiser stationary engineers and biomedical technicians who have been on strike since Sept. 18. The roughly 600-plus employees, all members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 39, work in Northern California.
Walkouts by optometrists, clinical laboratory scientists, X-ray technicians, housekeepers and other front-line workers in the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 29 and the Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20. In total, about 40,000 Kaiser workers are members of those three locals.
Then the engineers were joined by the California Nurses Association, which represents roughly 22,000 registered nurses, and the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which has 4,000 Kaiser mental health clinicians in its ranks.
SEIU-UHW said its protest assembled "the largest group of working people since 1894 to say we care enough about another group of workers to leave our job, give up pay and take a stand with the Local 39 Operating Engineers."
"This is quite remarkable but not at all surprising," union leaders wrote in a message to members on the SEIU-UHW website. "As healthcare workers, we have dedicated our lives to caring for others. We have risked our lives and health these past two years to care for patients during the pandemic. After seeing our co-workers, Kaiser engineers out on strike for 62 days, we said enough is enough. We joined them on the line with courage and honor in a moment that will define us for decades to come."
While Bartholow urged Kaiser to get back to the bargaining table and hammer out a fair deal on wages with Stationary Engineers, Local 39, Paul said unions in the medical profession have a responsibility to consider the impact on patients when determining how long to go out on strike.
"I do respect people's right to strike, but on the other hand, in the medical field, that could go too far in terms of patient care," said the 78-year-old retiree. "There's a certain responsibility there. It's just like police going on strike or something or mailmen going on strike. They have to be very careful about how long they're gone."
In response to a query from The Bee, the California Nurses Association said its members never make the decision to strike lightly. After deciding to strike, the nurses association provided Kaiser with a 10-day notice to allow them to take steps to safeguard patient care, said Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, one of the union's presidents.
"We participated in a sympathy strike in solidarity with IUOE Stationary Engineers, Local 39, as we know it is through collective action that we are able to force Kaiser to supply us with the resources and staffing necessary to provide safe patient care to all patients, in all units, at all times," Triunfo-Cortez said.
Nobody wants to strike, said Jeffrey Florence, an IUOE Local 39 steward who works at Kaiser's Sacramento Medical Center, but he said it was necessary because the company wouldn't negotiate "in good faith."
Paul said he was diagnosed with early-stage bladder cancer in August and canceled a kayaking vacation to pursue treatment as quickly as he could. He went through a diagnostic procedure where doctors sent a microscopic-sized camera up the urethra and into the bladder.
Traveling that same path, doctors performed six other procedures to treat Paul's cancer: In one surgery, they removed the tumors from his bladder. Then, in six weekly procedures, they delivered a tuberculosis vaccine to his bladder that Paul said has been used for about 40 years now to prevent tumors from recurring.
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Kaiser patients report canceled procedures, long phone waits amid California strike - North Bay Business Journal
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